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It is my intention in this account to attempt to bring together the essence of a talk given by the late Dr. John Bolland and myself at the Centre for the Study of Adolescence in February, 1973. I am indebted to Dr. M. Glasser of the Brent Consultation Centre for the excellent minutes of the meeting, which now serve to amplify the notes that we had extracted from a voluminous file that accumulated over the 5 year period of treatment.
In discussing our presentation of this case, Dr. Bolland and I realised that in selecting the pseudonym “Ruth” for this fifteen-year-old patient, we were unconsciously referring to certain associations — for instance, during the anorexia phase the girl was indeed “ruthless” in the sense that Winnicott employs it, and Ruth's mother certainly identified with the biblical character of that name, in that I became her “Naomi” in the transference. “Ruth clave unto her” and said “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go … where thou diest, will I die”.
The initial referral came as an urgent request from the G.P. and as it was presented as an emergency situation Dr. Bolland and I arranged to see mother and daughter the following day. Ruth was booked to fly to Australia to spend Easter with her father who had been divorced from her mother since Ruth was eight years old. She was said to be severely depressed and it was thought she might be suicidal. However, after her consultation with Dr. Bolland he decided he should trust her to make the trip and made an appointment to see her again on the day of her return.
From that meeting there followed an incessant outpouring of her writings that was to continue unabated for the next three years. Dr. Bolland felt that these efforts, some of which will be quoted, were eloquent and poignant expressions of her condition. The first two poems, brought to him on her return from Australia, set the tone of the following thirty sessions during which time sh